King of Hearts
by Girl of Salt and Stars
Summary: J. Daniel Atlas has no soulmate. (part one of the "you claim it's not in the cards (but you're here in my heart)" series )


His parents had been fighting again, but that was nothing new. They both screamed until their voices were raw, and then screamed some more. It was just another Tuesday. Five-year-old J. Daniel Atlas read a book, pretending not to hear the abuse they threw at each other for hours. His homework had been done hours ago and he had nothing better to do.

Around eleven, it stopped. The door slammed so hard it shook the foundation of their tiny house. Daniel lay in his bed and listened as the car started and pulled away, a sound that only meant relief. His father wouldn't stumble home until the next morning, meaning that Danny could finally leave his room where he'd been trapped, trying not to listen to the screams of his parents. Maybe he could get something to eat before school the next day. His stomach rumbled at the thought and Danny realized just how hungry he was.

He slipped out of his room, quiet as a mouse, trying to get to the kitchen unnoticed. He tiptoed in his sock feet down the short hall, avoiding the boards that squeaked the loudest. His mother was in their tiny living room, sitting in her favorite chair by the large window of the 10th story apartment.

She was sober for once and apparently was waiting for him. She called him over, in a rare moment of affection, wrapping her thin arms around an even thinner child. She hadn't held him in months, not since he fell and cut his leg open wide enough to need stitches.

"We really are soulmates, you know" she had whispered, looking past Danny, out into the night sky, glittering with stars "It wasn't always like this either."

At the time he'd sought her approval and love at every turn and was more than willing to listen, even if he didn't quite understand why she was telling him these things. He still wanted to be held; he wanted to have the comfort of his mother while it lasted.

"When we first met I was ecstatic and so was he. Our marks matched perfectly. And the first time we kissed, it was like magic. We were so in love. He would bring me flowers every day and we would dance when there was no music. It was perfect." She sniffled and Danny was stunned to realize she was crying. She shouted. She screamed. She threw plates at his head but his mother never cried. He held very still, trying not to squirm because somehow he knew this was important, even if he didn't quite know why.

His mother shifted and Danny could see her soulmark then. It was a large full moon, located on the juncture of her jaw and neck. His father had the same moon in the same place, though it was hard to see through his scraggly beard these days. His mother used to make him shave it, but they hadn't fought about that in ages.

"But then.. I don't know when, but slowly we drifted apart. We are both just so angry, all the time. Nothing makes sense. My mother told me that soulmates were the most wonderful thing in the world, that with them you would be happy." She laughed and it scared Danny, just a little because that wasn't a happy laugh "I've never been more miserable. And the worst part is.. I still love him, this soulmark, it ties me to him. I can never leave."

His mother pushed Daniel off her lap suddenly, but held onto his arms, roughly twisting him to face her. There were still tears gleaming in her eyes. But, her gaze was anything but sad. In fact it was angry. It was scary. "Listen to me, Jason Daniel Atlas," She said, squeezing his arms so tight it hurt "Don't you ever, ever, make that same mistake. Never let someone trap you. Not with love, not with a soulmark, not with anything. You are the only person you can trust, you hear me? Soulmates will kill you, boy"

Danny's eyes had widened and he was trembling, ever so slightly in fear. "Do you understand me?" she said, shaking his small frame just a little.

He nodded, quickly and fiercely "Yes mama" His voice was barely above a whisper but it must have satisfied her because she released him.

"Good." She said, turning away from him to stare out the window once more "Now, go to bed. You have school tomorrow."

Danny stared at her for a moment then scurried back to bed without complaint that he hadn't even gotten supper. He wasn't hungry anymore.

As he lay in bed, Danny tried not to think about the soulmark on his side. Tried not to think about the white rectangle, a card, with a symbol of each suit on it. Tried not to think about how warm it was sometimes, how much he like to look at it. His mother's words rang in his mind. It was a trap. It was pain.

He cried himself to sleep.

Daniel was ten and far too smart for a soulmate. He'd seen the ways his parents acted- they were soulmates but they were miserable. What kind of person wanted that? To be trapped by someone, to have no choice, to be at their every whim? How stupid. No, he was far too smart for that.

Daniel _was_ a smart boy after all, easily bored with school and not very good at making friends, he spent most of his time learning. He found an interest in magic and practiced it in secret, between his too easy schoolwork and the other reading he did. It was exhilarating to control the perception, the trick. Even when his parents were screaming, when other kids whispered, when teachers gave him pitying looks, it didn't matter, not when he was practicing magic. He was too smart for his classmates, who struggled to keep up, who busied their time with search for soulmates. Daniel needed no one, not them, and especially not his soulmate. He started wearing a patch over his mark at age twelve. He didn't care to see his mark if he could help it. It only reminded him of how much he hated fate.

His mother wasn't smart and hadn't given him much, but she had given him good advice.

His resolve only strengthened when, at seventeen, his Jason Atlas Sr. drank himself into an early grave took Luna Atlas with him only days later. She died of a broken heart, the corner had said. Not unusual for the situation.

Some people even thought it was romantic. That's what they told him at the funeral where he didn't cry. They told him it was romantic that they couldn't stand to be apart.

Daniel thought it was weak. Why would anyone want to depend on another person so much they can't live without them?

It was pathetic.

He promised his mother he would not make her mistakes and that is one he would keep. It was the only advice she'd given him in seventeen years he cared to follow.

From then on out, Daniel was Atlas, and Atlas had no soulmate.

Literally. His parents were soulmates and it had killed them, stripped them of any chance of happiness in life. Daniel would never fall prey to that trap.

So, when he turned eighteen, he had his soulmark removed for the first time.

It was illegal. It was painful. And he would have to get it done every six months for the rest of his life.

It was also the happiest Atlas had ever been.

The soulmark, unlike regular skin, would never scar. It would never be covered. It would always come back. Fate was a bitch after all. But it could be removed temporarily. Atlas would take what he could get. Better that than someone who would slowly kill him.

Despite the constant ache on his side where the mark used to be and the infections, living without his soulmark was the best choice he'd ever made. So what if he had a soulmate? He didn't anymore. He had no mark. Nothing to prove that he ever had one. Nothing holding him down.

He was in control.

Atlas didn't stay in college- he tried it, sure- but it was too restrictive, too boring. He fell back on magic instead.

He was good at it. Magic wasn't easy, but the more he did it, the more it became second nature. He loved to dazzle crowds, to control their perception, to find new ways to subvert what they could see.

He liked the sex too.

(Just because Atlas didn't believe in soulmates or love, didn't mean he couldn't enjoy sex. It was even better because he had no mark. No ties, no hope for the poor souls in his bed. No soulmate, no strings)

Atlas got good enough to hire an assistant even. Henley was smart, talented, and witty. She brought the crowds in and together they performed amazing tricks that he could never have done alone, loathe as he was to admit it.

But when she told him she loved him, he had to fire her.

It was too bad, Atlas was losing a great partner, but he knew it was coming, the way she looked at him, the way she flirted, flattered, he knew she felt something towards him he couldn't give her. Wouldn't. And she'd come on to him too. Henley was stunning, no doubt, but Atlas couldn't give her false hope. Too bad, he was sure she was as great in bed as she was on stage.

He was moving on anyways though, his style wasn't matching hers anymore. They had too many creative differences to really work anymore. And the show was always the most important.

(He never did hire another assistant though. Not because none measured up, no, he just... worked best alone. Always had.)

Atlas didn't need an assistant, or a friend, and certainly not a soulmate, evident by the raw skin on his side. Allowing fate even that much was only inviting destruction. It was allowing someone to control him. Atlas never let anyone control him. Especially not some mark that hadn't been on his skin in years.

In fact, it had been so long for him since he'd seen more than a faint outline of his mark that by the time he was summoned to a crappy apartment with nothing but a tarot card, he had practically forgotten what his mark looked like.

After all, he had no soulmate.


End file.
